A new book has just been published by Common Threads that explores fifteen contemporary quilts and their relationship to the ecology of Hawai’i.
Marenka Thompson-Odlum, a Research Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford leads a project to enhance the Museum’s collections, commission new work and develop relationships with communities represented in the collections. The project has led her to understand the pieces in the collections for which she cares by learning the techniques and practices that created them, and one of those is Hawaiian quilting.
Working with a community of quilters, the Poakalani quilting group, the curator travelled through Hawai’i to look at traditional practices of land tenure and ownership and the ways in which they have been disrupted. While this may not seem to have much to do with quilts, the practice of making such articles relates to the ways in which people of the islands pass along stories and histories. The quilts carry not only these stories but also the knowledge of creating the pieces with old techniques and natural motifs, all the while supporting new ways to see the changes that are occurring because of historical legacy and climate change. They are a true representation of the Hawaiian concept of “ka wā mamua” – the past before us.
This book, Mauka to Makai: Hawaiian Quilts and the Ecology of the Islands, tells the story of these fascinating quilts.
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Selvedge magazine article with an extract from the new book
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